Review: Snowbound

Snowbound by Blake Crouch
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review. At best it is a 1.5 star book.

The premise is straightforward. A wife/mother is abducted. The police fail to execute a proper investigation. A shadowy law enforcement figure shows up claiming to have "the facts".

The reality is that the young womany was taken for her looks to serve as a sex slave at a posh Alaskan wilderness retreat. Rich men pay lots of money to visit and rape the women. A rescue ensues.

The plot is riddled with more holes than a wheel of Swiss cheese. The Alaskan resort is massive, remote, and unknown. It is highly unlikely that such a structure would ever be built/exist undetected.

The resort is visited by lots of men and there are many men involved in the abduction and maintenance of the slaves/women. There is zero possibility that such a secret operation could remain a secret for long given the number of people involved.

Then there is the cardboard characterizations. The more prominent patrons are all Texas oilmen or their close friends.

The first half/two-thirds of the story is a pretty good investigation/pursuit story. It's only when the location of the story shifts to Alaska where flimsy storytelling rears its ugly head.

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Review: Rocks Fall. Everyone Dies.

Rocks Fall. Everyone Dies. by Eddie Skelson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is a 1-star review. That is more stars than it is worth.

The author is in dire need of a copyeditor and needs to retake 8th grade English/grammar.

I read less than a dozen pages before I was consumed with the urge to hurl this book across the room, Dorothy Parker style. Sadly, it was an electronic copy.

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Review: Eve of Darkness

Eve of Darkness by S.J. Day
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. That is a reasonable estimate of my experience with this book.

The conceit of the book is that God and angels exist. The Bible is presented as being a not-quite accurate portrayal of their history. Eve is a successful young woman who is in lust with Cain; The Cain - the brother killing guy that now is unable to die.

Eve is given the "Mark of Cain" by his brother, Abel. Nope....he isn't dead. He is a part of a sort of celestial bail bond organization that collects and kills demons and other evil creatures who have tried God's patience a bit too much.

This book is about Eve's transition from ordinary mortal to being a "Mark" working for the same bail bond organization. The general world-building was good, but not great. The characters were reasonably engaging. However, there were a few features that undermined the general narrative.

- The "Marks" are supposed to be sinners that are working off their sin so they can get into heaven. There isn't any explanation as to why individuals are selected to become Marks. One Mark is indicated to be a past member of a yakuza in Japan; so a gang banger of some sort. But there isn't any indication of what made Eve a uniquely suitable subject to be "recruited". We have no real definition of her sins that brought her to the attention of the divine.

- The attraction between Cain and Eve has no basis beyond "just because". The same is true for Abel's attraction to Eve. The entire basis for relationships in the story appears to be nothing more than overactive hormones. It is pointed out that Cain had been married before, but Eve is referred to as his "first love". The author is just pushing people together and expecting the reader to ignore the paper-thin justification for these relationships.

- Sex. Lots of steamy and explicit sex. While that seems to be a feature in a segment of the urban fantasy genre, it doesn't do much to advance the narrative of this story.

- Speaking of which, the first act of sex is when Abel rapes Eve. In later chapters of the book, she remains attracted to him despite resisting his advances.

I will probably add a couple more things on my blog as there are cultural issues that don't really belong in a formal review of a book.

If you want a light read that is heavy on the erotica and light on the plot, this is a good book for you.

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And here are the "couple more things".  Mostly this has to do with politics and culture with respect to some aspects of SF/F fandom.

This book leans heavily on the "female gaze".  The "male gaze" is a reference to when male characters notice the physical attributes....primarily breasts and posteriors...of female characters.  This book leans heavily on the reverse of that phenomenon.  The male characters are heavily objectified.

And I'm largely OK with that.

The problem is that if this were a male author engaged in writing a story that leans heavily on male characters objectifying female characters, then that author would be savaged as being a misogynist hack.  Much worse invective would be headed his way.

This book was published by Tor.  They appear to be currently engaged in correcting the disparity in diversity within SF/F works.  I note that they heavily promote female authors.  At least, that is what shows up in my email box and in various social media experiences.

And I'm largely OK with that as well.

Again, the problem is that I can't imagine Tor publishing a male author's story that heavily trafficked in the proverbial male gaze.  Nor can I imagine Tor publishing a male author's story that features a prominent and obvious rape that not only had zero consequences for the rapist but had his victim still expressing some form of attraction to her rapist.

This is sort of sloppy storytelling is not what I would expect from one of the "big five" publishers.  I think that this situation exists because of a desire to correct...in this case, one might say over-correct...for past issues with diversity, or lack thereof.

Our culture may made moderate a bit in the next decade.  The pendulum may swing back towards the middle.  Common sense might come back in vogue.  I might read this book with different eyes while living in that future culture.  In our current culture, it is difficult to ignore these issues relative to this book.

Lightly edited on 3/24/2021

A Quilt For Jude

A couple of good friends had a baby a couple years back.  And I made a quilt....surprise!

In this case, I had a bunch of fabrics in my stash that were good for a baby quilt.  But I didn't have enough of each one to go with my usual log cabin approach.

So what's a quilter to do?  Improvise!

In this case, I coupled wide strips of white with narrow strips of various other materials.  Once those were stitched together, I cut them at the same width as the narrow strips.

I then used wide strips of colored material with narrow strips of white.  Those got cut to the width of the colored material.

Then you match a narrow strip with a wide strip to make a square.  Lay out the squares in a pleasing manner and voila...a quilt is born.

I used a minky fabric for the backing.  That worked out a bunch better than some of my other quilts.  I always have a problem with the cotton backing wrinkling if I don't work hard to get all the loose fabric out of it.

As a bonus, I was able to incorporate some material from his older brother's quilt in his quilt.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  And Jude is pretty cool, too.

Jude - his own self

A Quilt For Everet

So a long time ago, I made a quilt.  And I took one photograph.  I did not record the recipient.

And thus began a 4-year quest to figure out who the heck got that quilt!  Most embarrassing for me.

His dad cleared up the mystery and now I can add it to my record. 

A Quilt For Emery

I'm working at getting my quilt entries caught up.  This beauty was for our grandniece, Emery.  She's a few years older now and cute as a button.

For The Record

I care a whole lot more about what is going on between a political candidate's ears than the pigmentation, configuration, and application of their genitalia.

The same goes for pretty much everyone else.

A Quilt for Lincoln

My most recent finish.  This is my second quilt for 2020 and my first baby quilt of the year.

The design was inspired in part by the recent Initial K finish posted over at Reddit.  The Initial K pattern is Vaquero.

I did my own thing with the arrows...details below.  The blocks use the technique developed by Joe Cunningham for his Rock The Block - Album Style quilt.  His lesson actually includes (3) different quilting techniques; including Rock The Block.  I've been wanting to try a full-blown Rock The Block quilt, but haven't really had the chance.  This quilt was my first opportunity to test out the technique.

I learned a few things.  One piece of advice for Rock The Block, don't use too many narrow strips.  And really don't use narrow strips that are adjacent to one another.  Another piece of advice is to plan on making many more blocks than you will need to finish the quilt.  There are many opportunities when you are trying to make a specific cut that ends up right next to a seam.  You need to have some flexibility in executing Joe's technique.

The first photo is from when I was getting the sandwich done.  I'm not really happy with how the quilting process wound up.  I learned a couple more things about that.

Click to embiggen

The second photo is the finished quilt.

Click to embiggen

--------

Ok...so the arrows.  From what I saw, the Initial K pattern uses blocks to create the arrows.  My intent was to be able to sew in continuous strips of the gradient material.  To do that, I had to get the pieces in the arrow strips cut just right to match.  There was a fair amount of trial and error, but this ended up working.

Step one was to fold the 2 1/2" wide gradient strip perfectly (or nearly so) in half.  Then I cut a section that is 4 3/8" from the fold.  I found that cutting that section as just slightly less than 4 3/8" worked a little better.  Hold onto the ends and leave them together.

Step two was to cut the color strips.  They were 12 1/2" long.

Step three was to cut the 30° angles at the end of the strips.  The angles were cut to the points.  Leave the gradient strip folded in half.  And make sure you get the angles in the right direction!

Step four was to sew the arrows onto the centerpieces from the gradient material.

Step five was to remove 1 7/8" from the middle portion of the remainder of the gradient strip.

You should be left with an arrow strip that is roughly the same length as an uncut gradient strip.

A modest update.  I did receive a photo of young Lincoln with his quilt.  He's a keeper.

Review: The Two Week Curse

The Two Week Curse by Michael Chatfield
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 4 star review.

This book is LitRPG. I do not like LitRPG. Yet this book kept me turning the page.

The conceit of this book is that there is a virus outbreak. Anyone that gets the virus disappears after two weeks. Their clothes go with them, so disappearances are considered to have an area of effect beyond the person. No one knows where the virus victims end up. Rumors exist of victims becoming much stronger/faster/better in the two weeks prior to their disappearance.

Enter two military veterans working personal security overseas. They get the disease.

After two weeks, they end up in swords and sorcery land. Fortunately, they used what was known about the disease and were standing amidst a stockpile of supplies when they were teleported.

The author gets a whole bunch of things right. He has his protagonists pursue objectives that are unique from the traditional swords/sorcery milieu. They also use teambuilding skills in a way that is traditional from a modern military perspective but unique to a swords/sorcery world.

One hook that kept my attention was how characters with a modern military perspective applied that perspective to a swords/sorcery life. They ended up planning their activities and objectives to maximize their ability to increase their "stat levels". It was amazingly similar to how a person plays a video game to maximize their abilities at each stage of the game.

The dialog and characters are at times somewhat simple, but they are also very believable. While I didn't care for the LitRPG aspect, the characters and the narrative were good enough to keep me coming back for more and more.

On the downside, the author needs a copyeditor in the worst way. There are enough spelling/grammar errors to be troublesome.

Also on the downside, this is LitRPG. You could cut out a tenth of the pages if you skipped over the "leveling up" messages along with a listing of new stats for each character.

If LitRPG and some grammar/spelling errors don't bother you, and if MilSF and Fantasy are your thing, then this book is probably for you!


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Review: Heroes Wanted: A Fantasy Anthology

Heroes Wanted: A Fantasy Anthology by Ben Galley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The introduction of this anthology is about a short story about how the hero isn't who you expect it to be. In that story, a guy goes from nothing to being the ruler of the world by using his brains to overcome all of the evil people in the world. Evil is gone...good thing, right?

So no one will challenge this ruler of the world because, in his quest to overcome evil, he developed a machine that will end the world with the push of a button. As ruler of the world, this guy is pretty oppressive.

The real hero? Some other person that has a set of wire cutters and access to the button.

Now that is the bones of a pretty good story and a pretty good premise around which to build an anthology.

Sadly, the anthology doesn't deliver. Most of the "heroes" are just looking out for their own interests when the opportunity to act comes along.

The stories were well written, but a bit pedestrian. I was a little over halfway through when I set it aside for something else. I don't plan on going back.

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A Musical Window

I am not a fan of paper piecing in quilting.  It takes a lot of time to get very little accomplished.  I suppose that is why most of the quilts I make are log cabin or some variant of the log cabin pattern.  Put in a strip of fabric, and throw on blocks until you get to the end.

Power quilting!

Therefore, I am always on the hunt for techniques that utilize strips rather than pieces as the foundation for the design.  I approach quilting more as an engineer where mathematics and fabrication are a bit more important than artistic flair.  I also approach quilting as a guy; my color selections lean towards bolder colors and greater contrasts.

Some time ago I ran across the Magic Tiles pattern by Kathleen Bissett.  The process described in the pattern was quite attractive to me.  It offered a mathematic process of construction and a (somewhat) chaotic presentation of color.  Chaos, quite naturally, is also mathematic.

Music is a passion of my mother's.  That may be one reason why she was so enamored of my father when they first met.  I began collecting music-based quilting fabric after finding the Magic Tiles pattern.

Now the first rule of quilting is to follow the instructions.

The second rule of quilting is to know when to break the first rule.

The pattern calls for twelve different fabrics.  I think I ended up using ten.  So the process for randomizing the fabrics didn't work quite as well for me.  I had to do some manual manipulation when it came to the final assembly of the square tiles.

If you look closely, you will probably find some goofs in my assembly of the squares.  The biggest error was in not maintaining consistent seams with the grout strips.  A couple of the grout strips are a little wider than the rest.  I thought that would work out in the end as long as the error stacked up in the same way.

The error did stack up.  And some of the grout runs have a jog in the middle of the tile due to the larger grout strips.  At that point, it was too late to go back and "fix" it.  I pushed on hoping that most people wouldn't see the error.

One other change did work out quite well.  The pattern in the instructions detailed a border that was tight to the inner tiles.  I elected to use a broad black border between the tiles and the colored border.  I then finished out the distance to edge using black fabric.  The dimensions for my final quilt are roughly 66" x 94". 

The photo below is of the quilt just prior to binding.  I had quilted all of the grout in place and wanted to make sure that the top and bottom were smooth before sealing the edges.

I was quite pleased with how the back worked out on this quilt.  My backs end up having bunches far too frequently.  My solution has been to use more flexible, plush backing materials on baby quilts.  For some reason, they don't bunch up.  Or to be frustrated by re-quilting sections.  Or to just live with it.  It isn't bad, it's just not perfect.  The back on this quilt is almost perfect.

Sometimes, you learn all the good stuff after you are done.  In this case, I obviously learned an important lesson about consistent seams.  Log cabin quilts can hide a world of sins.  This pattern....not so much.

I also learned a fair amount about Kathleen Bissett via her website.  She is a degreed educator that thought she would spend her life teaching math.  Life is funny.  She still teaches.  Math is still heavily involved in her work.  But she rarely teaches in a traditional school.  Kathleen also has some very pointed....and correct....thoughts about supporting creators and their copyrights.

If you want to purchase her pattern and your local quilting store can't get it, then you might start by contacting the good people at Quilt Craft.

Review: Red Rising

Red Rising by Pierce Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star DNF review.

I received this as part of the Hugo awards packet in 2015. The story/writing was OK. The world-building had some interesting aspects.

I just could not connect with any of the characters or their situation. There were better things to read, and so I did.

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Review: The Legion Awakes

The Legion Awakes by J.R. Handley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A great first book by a new author and US Army veteran. Captures the mil-sf genre very well.

Can't wait to get to book 2

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[adding on over a year later]

This is the first book published by a US Army vet and his wife.  They are a team.  He is using writing as a way of processing his time in the Army.

Our protagonist awakens from some sort of hypersleep and is put to work training new recruits.  He uses what are considered "old-school" methods of training to get better performance out of his recruits.  They are pretty lazy and marginally competent when he picks them up.  But soon he has a platoon that is coming along nicely. 

The high point of the training exercise is when his new unit is tasked with being the sacrificial lambs for an annual training exercise for the larger unit.  They come up with a plan that takes out that larger unit.  The scene is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's "Heartbreak Ridge" movie.

And then the world goes pear-shaped.  Our protagonist and his unit have to figure out who the bad-guys are and how to protect those needing protecting.

The author gets military service 100% right.  It even tastes right.  He then tosses in a bunch of new technology.  One of his very capable underlings re-programs the unit that produces clothes.  As a result, another...equally capable.....underling is caught wearing some "cute" panties instead of the standard-issue stuff.  Sometimes a girl just wants to be pretty even if it is just for herself.

It's a "new army" and our protagonist has to adjust to them as much as they have to adjust to him.

His unit ends up re-tasking and repurposing a lot of technology so that they can fight more efficiently.  That hard work pays off in the end.

While some of the later entries in the series didn't land as well for me, this is an outstanding book that is worthy of much broader attention.

2019 - A Year In Quilts

I began the year working on a quilt for my mom that is supposed to look a bit like a stained glass window.  The technique is really pretty simple.  I was about 60% through that process when the start of my quilting year got turned around.

One of our nephews and his girlfriend announced that they were expecting in the spring.  So the stained glass quilt got put aside in favor of the "old reliable"; log cabin.  Shortly after beginning that quilt, I had a colleague at work announce their pending arrival.

So I was two quilts behind before the end of February.  The quilt for our nephew's son, Jayce, was done in the early spring.  Just in time for our youngest son and another nephew to announce that they (and their girlfriends, natch) were expecting as well.

So I'm three quilts behind headed into summer.  The quilt for my colleague's daughter-to-be was finished barely in time for her arrival.  This was a new (to me) pattern that had a very modern look that is supposed to evoke the Death Star from Star Wars.  I'll probably try it again in the future.

Then things got a little busy.  My dad ended up passing in July.  So the quilt for our other nephew's daughter, Charlotte, ended up being finished a little after she was born.  Better late than never.  But the summer was pretty busy.  Another log cabin completed.

Heading into September, I figured I had a pretty good handle on the schedule.  One more baby quilt for our youngest son to make and then mom could have her quilt completed by Christmas.

And then, surprise!  Our oldest son and his girlfriend called us early.....I mean EARLY...one morning to let us know we were about to become grandparents for the first time.  In September.  Not December.

She had a pregnancy that was so secret that she didn't even know about it until about 12 hours before Emma was delivered.  While we were tickled pink with her arrival, that added an unexpected quilt to my year.  What's a guy to do but get some new fabric and get on with it.  Which I did.  Three log cabin quilts this year alone!

And then it was back to the quilt for our youngest son's daughter, Ella.  It was done in the nick of time.  I finally had a chance to work some fabric that I had been eyeing at the fabric store for a few years.  I think this fourth log cabin of the year turned out nicely.

But that left my mom's quilt as an incomplete for 2019.  It's a little closer to being done now and should be completed by mid-February at the very latest.

A Quilt for Ella

So short story long, back in the spring, our youngest and his girlfriend announced that they were also having a baby. This was to have been our first grandchild.

If you've read about Miss Emma's quilt, then you know how that expectation worked out.

We spent some time looking at fabrics.  Two of them, pink and purple squares, were ones that I had seen before and had been wanting to try in a quilt.  They posed a bit of a challenge due to the tiny square pattern in the material.  It is quite difficult to cut perfectly parallel successive strips of material from a 40" wide section of fabric.  I ended up cutting 2 1/2" wide x 20" long strips.  Most of the cuts pretty well match the pattern of the squares.

In the end, I was pleased with the result.  And as with Emma's quilt, the backing material for Ella's quilt was a plushy fabric that didn't bunch (much) when sewed.

Miss Ella's Quilt - Finished

Miss Ella's Quilt - Detail

Miss Ella - Her Own Self

We think she's a keeper

Papa Josh and Miss Ella

Catching a little shut eye.

A Quilt for Emma

So here we are late in 2019.  You may have picked up on the suggestion under Charlotte's quilt entry that there was another quilt in the works.

This.....is not that quilt.

So late in September, we received an early morning call from our oldest.  His girlfriend was in labor.  He didn't know she was pregnant.  She didn't know she was pregnant!  There's a longer story there, but the doctors and nurses went to great lengths to express to us that this situation was not as unusual as you might think.

We received another call a couple hours later.  It was still a long way before our alarms were set to go off.  She was dilated to 3.  Off to the hospital we went!  About 6 or 7 hours later, our first grandchild, Emma came into the world.  She was a little early.  The doctors thought that she was at about 34 weeks when she was born.  Her first day was a little rough.  But she was out of the neonatal unit and safe at home a week later. 

She's pretty tough...like her old man.  Her mom, too, for what it's worth.

The only problem is that when I went to sleep the previous night, I had not planned on any extra quilts for 2019.  And now I was planning on another quilt for 2019!

I opted for another pink/grey combination.  It turned out pretty well.

The backs of quilts are always a bit of a challenge for me.  It's hard to come up with something that is visually interesting while also being easy enough to sew.  This time around I opted for a pink/grey synthetic fabric that felt a little plushy.  The fibers weren't crazy long, but they are long enough to be soft to the touch.

My beloved bride thinks I should use soft materials as they will be in contact with the baby's skin.  I think the backing material worked pretty well this time around.  I might have to keep looking at that fabric for future baby quilts.

Miss Emma's Quilt - Finished

Miss Emma's Quilt - Back

Miss Emma - her own self.  Almost 3 months old.

We're still tickled pink to have her in our lives.

A Quilt for Charlotte

A different nephew and his girlfriend also ended up having a baby this year.  We found out about this in the spring.  I had completed one quilt, had a second one in the works, and now a third (or more) racked up in rapid succession.

I wasn't sure what to do for Charlotte.  But knowing that a little girl was coming and knowing that I still had some special fabric left in the stash pile, I just dove in and put together fabrics that I had available.  You may recognize one or two fabrics as being in prior quilts.

I really hate working with flannel.  It isn't dimensionally stable.  You can cut a 2 1/2" wide strip and end up pushing and pulling it so that it ends up being 1/8" on either side.  A continuing set of 1/8" errors is really a pain in the backside when you are piecing the larger squares together.

The "special fabric" was the white flannel with the tiny red roses.  My mother-in-law had purchased a whole bunch of that material with the intent of making nightgowns for two of her granddaughters when they were in the 4 to 6-year-old range.  Both are in their 20s today.  Neither of them got a nightgown.

Mom is gone now.  She is greatly missed.  Now I have/had the material.  As this would be another of her great-grandchildren, I thought it would be a good use.

Charlotte's Quilt - Finished

Charlotte's Quilt - Detail

A Quilt for Chloe

Immediately after finishing Jayce's quilt, I started to work on one for Miss Chloe.  A friend at work was working to produce Chloe, so I thought it would be OK to produce something to keep her warm once she got here.  Chloe and her momma made it through safe and sound.

Instead of doing another log cabin quilt, I took a stab at a little different pattern.  This one is supposed to be inspired by the Death Star from Star Wars.

Is there another Death Star outside of Star Wars?

I picked up the pattern in a quilting magazine because it has a really cool modern art feel to it.  I think it turned out OK.

Chloe's Quilt - Pre-Quilting

Chloe's Quilt - Detail

Chloe's Quilt - Finished

The partial circles were a bit of trouble.  I had to learn/re-learn some things to make them come out correctly.  But this was a fun pattern.  I expect that I will try it again in the future.

A Quilt for Jayce

One of our nephews and his girlfriend had Jayce much earlier this year.  So I put aside my then (now current) quilting to begin working on one for Jayce.  His mom was interested in an animal theme for Jayce.  The result is below.

Jayce's Quilt

Jayce's Quilt - Single Panel

I think it worked out pretty well.  He's a pretty cute bugger, too!

Review: The Court of Broken Knives

The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been meaning to give this book by Anna Smith Spark a try for a long time. Several grimdark oriented groups have raved about it. And Anna is a sparkling addition to some of those groups. But now I have to separate the work from the author.

This is a 4-star review of this book. In reality, I think it is more of a 3.5-star book. The world-building was interesting. There were cultural clashes between characters that suggested some decidedly different bases for their respective nations/cities.

Spoilers lie ahead...

One protagonist appears to be descended from some sort of deity-like person that once ravaged the world. All their ancestors wanted to do was to kill. By the end, those qualities are apparent in abundance in the protagonist. God-kings do not fall far from their proverbial trees.

The other protagonist was chosen at random to be a high priestess who committed ritual human sacrifice on a regular basis because her religion says that such sacrifices are needed so that humans can still be born, live, and die. If she were to stop, then no one would be born and no one would die. There isn't any evidence to support that faith within the text. However, it does seem that she possesses some extra-human abilities as a result.

They come together and fall in love. He passionately. She reluctantly. He sees no flaws in her. She sees many in him. But in the end, two beautiful but scarred people must be in love.

[

One protagonist appears to be descended from some sort of deity-like person that once ravaged the world. All their ancestors wanted to do was to kill. By the end, those qualities are apparent in abundance in the protagonist. God-kings do not fall far from their proverbial trees.

The other protagonist was chosen at random to be a high priestess who committed ritual human sacrifice on a regular basis because her religion says that such sacrifices are needed so that humans can still be born, live, and die. If she were to stop, then no one would be born and no one would die. There isn't any evidence to support that faith within the text. However, it does seem that she possesses some extra-human abilities as a result.

They come together and fall in love. He passionately. She reluctantly. He sees no flaws in her. She sees many in him. But in the end, two beautiful but scarred people must be in love.

With her love as the motivation, he moves to reclaim his position within his family. This turns out poorly for pretty much everyone near him. He has the ability to instill a sort of blind bloodlust that causes people to kill whoever happens to be nearby if an enemy isn't more available. The blood....it flows.

(hide spoiler)]
With her love as the motivation, he moves to reclaim his position within his family. This turns out poorly for pretty much everyone near him. He has the ability to instill a sort of blind bloodlust that causes people to kill whoever happens to be nearby if an enemy isn't more available. The blood....it flows.

While it has been a few years, this book reads a lot like Michael Moorcock's Elric stories. That is meant as a strong compliment.

While I had a pretty good idea about what makes the various characters special by the end of the book, it ended with me wondering if I really cared enough about their success or failure to want to continue the series. I never found a positive perspective to root for. There weren't any gems covered in grimdark grime. It was just blood, blood, blood and death, death, death. [read it to get the reference]

A second issue is that we spend a lot of time inside the character's heads; looking longingly at someone or plotting their next move. I am less attracted to spending pages upon pages on internal monologues.

There are several large and small scale political intrigues that unfold along the way. There is a broad range of characters with a diverse set of conflicting interests. The author adroitly manages all of those competing plot lines.

Fans of the grimdark subgenre should definitely give this book a try. It may connect better with you. Most of the elements of a fantastic read are there. And the series may unfold in a way that is more enjoyable than this single entry permits.

I probably won't find out for myself anytime soon.

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